Damn. Not good for Sukhoi. Even if it wasn't a mech/structural issue it's gotta affect sales. Russia needs this plane to get back in the commercial game. Gotta think there were some pretty high-rank officials at some of the smaller Indonesian airlines aboard

Well at least one article I read indicated they descended to 6000 feet in an area with mountains up to 7200' tall. No Garmin SVT, huh? There's an irony to having access to this technology in kit planes and cheap GA airplanes but not having it on commercial aircraft.

Related: who's responsibility is it to maintain a safe altitude when flying IFR in US airspace? Obviously, the rules could be different there, but if you ask for IFR clearance to, say, FL130 while flying over Aspen, CO, are you going to be cleared to that altitude even if it presents a clear terrain danger? Is it the pilot's responsibility to ask for safe altitudes, or center's responsibility to only grant safe altitudes?

Related: who's responsibility is it to maintain a safe altitude when flying IFR in US airspace? Obviously, the rules could be different there, but if you ask for IFR clearance to, say, FL130 while flying over Aspen, CO, are you going to be cleared to that altitude even if it presents a clear terrain danger? Is it the pilot's responsibility to ask for safe altitudes, or center's responsibility to only grant safe altitudes?

Good question. I'd love to know to as well

Aren't Indonesian airliners banned from EU and US? Truly a shame... I agree with ATL_Av8r, the russians need to get their act together with this plane!

Related: who's responsibility is it to maintain a safe altitude when flying IFR in US airspace? Obviously, the rules could be different there, but if you ask for IFR clearance to, say, FL130 while flying over Aspen, CO, are you going to be cleared to that altitude even if it presents a clear terrain danger? Is it the pilot's responsibility to ask for safe altitudes, or center's responsibility to only grant safe altitudes?

The Pilot In Command.

ATC isn't going to clear you for anything below the MEA (minimum enroute altitude) if on an airway, or the OROCA (off-route obstacle clearance altitude) if operating off-airway.

Wonder if close proximity to one of those active volcanoes played a role.

“I would request that my body in death be buried not cremated, so that the energy content contained within it gets returned to the earth, so that flora and fauna can dine upon it, just as I have dined upon flora and fauna during my lifetime” - Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Wonder if close proximity to one of those active volcanoes played a role.

Oh... like when the engines shut down after ingesting ash? I guess they'll probably release findings at some point, but ingesting ash and having the engines shut down while flying at night has happened elsewhere over the Pacific in the past if I recall correctly.

[QUOTE=AZGolf;77311216]Well at least one article I read indicated they descended to 6000 feet in an area with mountains up to 7200' tall. No Garmin SVT, huh? There's an irony to having access to this technology in kit planes and cheap GA airplanes but not having it on commercial aircraft.

[quote]

Yup even with 5 or 6 MFDs we don't even know what airspace we are in or what roads and bodies of water we are over like you could see on a Garmin 430. But we do have a great EGPWS that screams when you are no where near terrain but says nothing when you are

Originally Posted by AZGolf

Related: who's responsibility is it to maintain a safe altitude when flying IFR in US airspace? Obviously, the rules could be different there, but if you ask for IFR clearance to, say, FL130 while flying over Aspen, CO, are you going to be cleared to that altitude even if it presents a clear terrain danger? Is it the pilot's responsibility to ask for safe altitudes, or center's responsibility to only grant safe altitudes?

The rules are different. Just like Mexico. Most of the time you are non radar anyway. But in most other contries, Pilots are treated like gods. They are never wrong so ATC will not question you. If you ask for 4,000 when there is terrain at 7,000 you will get 4,000. Most of the procedures start at cruise altitude anyway. It's your responsibilty to execute the procedure correctly.

Damn. Not good for Sukhoi. Even if it wasn't a mech/structural issue it's gotta affect sales. Russia needs this plane to get back in the commercial game. Gotta think there were some pretty high-rank officials at some of the smaller Indonesian airlines aboard

RIP to the people on board, but

This is what I was thinking. Airbus had to fight back enough after AF 296, and that crash was attributed to pilot error, and there was only a couple fatalities. Even if it is found to not be a mechanical issue, sukhoi is going to have an uphill battle to make people trust this aircraft. People now expect aircraft to be almost perfect (think 777). Even the AF 296 incident was at a time when air crashes were more expected. Now, its almost unheard of to have a mechanical failure, and pilot errors even in developing countries are more rare.

Oh... like when the engines shut down after ingesting ash? I guess they'll probably release findings at some point, but ingesting ash and having the engines shut down while flying at night has happened elsewhere over the Pacific in the past if I recall correctly.

Yes, that was a BA-9 flight to Auckland. Pilots were lucky enough to be able to restart the engines and land the aircraft safely. They couldn't see anything out though because the windshield was scratched by glass-like particles.

“I would request that my body in death be buried not cremated, so that the energy content contained within it gets returned to the earth, so that flora and fauna can dine upon it, just as I have dined upon flora and fauna during my lifetime” - Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Looks like CFIT, descended from 9000 to 6000 according to last radio call ................ crash is at 6000 ....... looks as if they just flew straight in

You would think that in 2012 someone would have invented a system that would have a complete terrain map of the world on a disk and be able to compare the terrain map with the current position as well as your expected position based on your current flight path. And that type of system would be in a modern commercial aircraft. You would think.

You would think that in 2012 someone would have invented a system that would have a complete terrain map of the world on a disk and be able to compare the terrain map with the current position as well as your expected position based on your current flight path. And that type of system would be in a modern commercial aircraft. You would think.

See post #13

Synthetic vision, enhanced vision and HITS has been available to GA type aircraft for a few years now. Why it hasn't migrated to transport category aircraft yet is beyond me. It's a huge situational awareness boost.

Synthetic vision, enhanced vision and HITS has been available to GA type aircraft for a few years now. Why it hasn't migrated to transport category aircraft yet is beyond me. It's a huge situational awareness boost.

Why, you ask? Simple: Money.

The long answer is that the majority of airlines aren't interested in spending more money than what is absolutely necessary to get the job done. Example; one of my previous airlines ordered all of their planes with a single FMS. Rumor has it they tried to get Bombardier to deliver all of their planes with the round gauges instead of the glass that comes standard on the CRJ as a cost saving measure.

The long answer is that the majority of airlines aren't interested in spending more money than what is absolutely necessary to get the job done. Example; one of my previous airlines ordered all of their planes with a single FMS. Rumor has it they tried to get Bombardier to deliver all of their planes with the round gauges instead of the glass that comes standard on the CRJ as a cost saving measure.

The long answer is that the majority of airlines aren't interested in spending more money than what is absolutely necessary to get the job done. Example; one of my previous airlines ordered all of their planes with a single FMS. Rumor has it they tried to get Bombardier to deliver all of their planes with the round gauges instead of the glass that comes standard on the CRJ as a cost saving measure.

The long answer is that the majority of airlines aren't interested in spending more money than what is absolutely necessary to get the job done. Example; one of my previous airlines ordered all of their planes with a single FMS. Rumor has it they tried to get Bombardier to deliver all of their planes with the round gauges instead of the glass that comes standard on the CRJ as a cost saving measure.

At least you had FMS's designed for the aircraft. We have Universal 1Ks in the EMBs that were not designed to mate with our flight guidance controller. The plane will do a 30 degree "clearing turn" before going the right direction, not to mention the numerous RNAV departure deviations we have had due to the unit going into dead reckoning mode without alerting the crew. Recently with all the new RNAV departures and GPS approaches coming into the US, the box has run out of memory. Along with completely removing producedures from the database, Universal has also just removed certain fixes on approaches which makes them unusable.